SLUG’s second solo album is titled 'HiggledyPiggledy', which also doubles as an appropriate description of his musical aesthetic. This may be an inadvertently apt descriptor, but it may well be intentional. SLUG, aka Field Music bassist Ian Black, is a good-humoured, interesting, witty, self-educated, unpredictable, highly experimental artist: the Captain Beefheart of North East England. His most recent work also brings to mind the Sparks, Zappa, and cut-up techniques in general. The album’s press release contains a vague reference to the “strange life” he lives in his hometown of Sunderland, England, but gives no further explanation. Even if he feels at odds with his surroundings in that area of the country and wants to argue with many of the locals in the nearest Wetherspoon’s, it seems to work very well for his creativity.

SLUG’s 2015 astonishing and spiky solo debut 'Ripe' contained surprises like 'Greasy Mind' and 'Cockeyed Rabbit Wrapped in Plastic'. It also took a while to show up on the Google Play Store. With no album art, bio, or blurbs to go by, in my haste I accidentally bought an album by a rapper named Slug and had to get a refund from Google, then wait until the right SLUG’s (all caps, you see) work became available there. It has been a long three years waiting for the follow-up, which was inspired by the Residents, John Carpenter, soundtracks by Don Cherry, Masahiko Sato, and the Dada art movement. Black’s mission was to “have fun writing truly horrible lyrics,” adopting personae of people “venting in pubs, writing in the character of how some people think and behave.”

'HiggledyPiggledy' is more fleshed out than 'Ripe', with Black playing all the instruments and judiciously adding keyboards, rather than using the talents of Peter Brewis and David Brewis from Field Music this time. The music is thrilling, disjointed and angular, dominated by simply but sharp percussion, and cut through with surreal images, almost theatrical lyrics, and Black’s versatile voice. His funky bass onslaughts are still everywhere, happily filling in the minimalist spaces. The fulsome guitar work should please anyone going through rock guitar withdrawal this early in the year.

The album’s first single and opening song 'No Heavy Petting' mocks Black’s prudish reaction toward the pornification of music. “’No Heavy Petting’ was king of a task I gave myself to try and write a ‘sexy song,’ to see if I could do it,” Black says. “So I did a bit of research by turning on a music channel. I was drunk and I realized, while the synthesized marimba, bleeps, and drum machines and images of young men and women grinding all over each other, that I’d probably left it a little too late at the age of 35. There’s a little bit of dialogue spoken by computer within the song, and this is an exaggerated take on how I felt when watching those videos of weak as piss songs with softcore pornography paraded on them. ‘Can you just pack it in a minute, listen…leave each other alone and try and write a song…that’s like…good?’ Basically I’m now ancient.” Who could blame him for recoiling from the over-sexualization of literally everything in the world?

'Arbitrary Lesson in Custom' powerfully conveys the helpless, offended, sinking feeling caused by a friendship faltering because one of the people involved is too busy to find any time for the other. One of the album’s highlights has to be the pop-heavy 'Lackadaisical Love', a result of Black venting on the drums after a frustrating four hours in the studio. “Sometimes, amid the gloomy, pocket prog I write, it’s nice to have some uplifting pop goodness raise its head.” 'Dolly Dimple', the most recent single, is a fantastic glam rock snarl. He describes it as “a song about the pornography of wealth, power and business in place of good family values and looking after one another. All dressed up like a late 70s'-early 80's Bowie pop record.”

Whatever self-deprecating terms Black wants to use to describe his music are fine; 'HiggledyPiggledy' is still one of the best albums of the year so far.